MADRID: Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Tuesday that Spain would recognize a Palestinian state that includes the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
In a televised speech, he said he would not recognize any changes to Palestinian borders after 1967 unless all parties agreed.
The Spanish government will officially confirm the recognition on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Sanchez said the recognition of Palestine is a historic moment. He said, the persecution of Palestinians has never happened.
“Our decision is not against any country. It is the responsibility of all of us to create peace,” he said.
The prime minister said the decision to recognize Palestine “is in line with UN resolutions.”
Unfortunately, on May 22, Norway, Ireland and Spain announced they would recognize the state of Palestine, and Israel immediately recalled its ambassador.
The Irish leader said his people would recognize Palestine as a state, but did not set a date, while the leaders of Norway and Spain said their countries would do so from May 28.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr shop in Oslo, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris in Dublin.
Israel immediately announced that it was recalling its representatives in Ireland and Norway for “urgent consultations”.
“Today I am sending a strong message to Ireland and Norway: Israel will not be silent on this issue,” said Foreign Minister Israel Katz.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry earlier sent a video message to Ireland on the X social media platform, warning that “recognizing a Palestinian state risks making you a hostage to Iran and Hamas” and that the move would only fuel extremism. Unsustainability” opens the topic.
Israel has said its plan to recognize the Palestinians is a “gift of terror” that will undermine any possibility of negotiations on the situation in Gaza.
But Norway, which played a key role in Middle East diplomacy by hosting the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the early 1990s that led to the Oslo accords, said it should be known for supporting moderate voices in the Gaza crisis.
“Palestinian recognition is a means of supporting neutral powers that are losing ground in a protracted and violent conflict,” he said.
“Next Tuesday, May 28, the Spanish cabinet will approve the recognition of the Palestinian state,” Spain’s Sanchez said at a meeting in Madrid, adding that Israel was “under threat” with the two-state solution policy of his partner Benjamin Netanyahu.
Irishman Harris hailed it as “a historic and important day for Ireland and Palestine”.
For years, the official recognition of a Palestinian state has been seen as the end of the peace phase between the Palestinians and their neighbor Israel.
The United States and most Western European countries have said they are willing to one day recognize the state of Palestine, but not before an agreement is reached on difficult issues such as the final borders and the status of occupied Jerusalem.
But after the October 7 attacks by Hamas and Israel’s aggression in Gaza, diplomats are reconsidering their controversial views.
In 2014, Sweden, which has a large Palestinian community, became the first European Union member state in Western Europe to recognize the state of Palestine.
Recognizing a Palestinian state is “the best guarantee of justice for the Palestinians (and) security for Israel,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said Sunday along with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa.
